Raghda al-Assar, een tienjarig meisje uit Khan Younis waarover ik al eerder schreef (weer een kind) is gisterochtend gestorven.
(Raghda’s klasgenoten toen ze gisteren het nieuws hoorden)
Ze lag twee weken in de intenstive care, maar was niet te redden.
Raghda werd in haar hoofd geschoten toen ze tijdens engelse les in haar klaslokaal zat. Op dat moment was het Israëlische leger bezig om vanuit de wachttorens van de nederzetting Neve Dekalim het vluchtelingenkamp van Khan Younis lukraak te beschieten. Het is niet de eerste keer dat er kinderen tijdens hun lessen op school zijn beschoten. Twee kinderen van tien jaar overleefden het, een meisje van 12 werd blind.
Niet alleen de ouders van Raghda zijn ontroostbaar. Ze hadden haar die ochtend met een appel in haar rugzak en een nieuw gestreept UNRWA uniform naar school laten gaan. Alle ouders zijn bang om hun kinderen naar school te laten gaan, en de kinderen zijn bang dat dit je zomaar kan overkomen, midden in de klas, zeker de kinderen die er bij waren toen Raghda bloedend voorover viel op haar schrift, en ze schreeuwend van paniek onder hun lessenaars doken. Er zijn kinderen die spijbelen, die nachtmerries hebben, die opnieuw in hun bed plassen. Sommige jongens dromen ervan om snel ouder te worden en eindelijk iets terug te kunnen doen. Veel meisjes worden stil en depressief.
(foto’s van de Electronic Intifada)
shit
Dit is echt uiterst treurig… een kind. Doodgeschoten. Het is om te janken. 🙁
Bah; verschrikkelijk walgelijk.
Dear Anja;
It is Jabalia this time, it was Jeneen before, and also Rafah passed through it. It is not the way that the civilized world looks to it. Human being is the most valuable on earth. This is true for the civilized children, but our children, bleeding down the streets of Jabalia. Our children are terrorists, so there blood should be shed and they should be killed, they do not deserve to live. I love you Jabalia, I love every single peace of land that has hugged a drop of the blood of our children. You could not imagine when the Israeli tank bombed a group of children in Jabalia with a shell that is used for tanks and even is not allowed to be used in the wars. At the hospital they could not know which part is for whom. Seven children were collected into plastic bags with no faces and will be buried into one hole. Do you imagine how difficult is it to bury your child with a leg or a hand or even a head that is not his own, or it is for another child. I love you Jabalia, and I am sure that Jabalia loves me and loves every single Palestinian waked ones on its ground. Even Jabalia loves you anja, you’ve been there and you passed through its narrow roads, it remembers you, but next time you will not recognize it due to the bulldozer’s work. Israel is doing us good, they are giving us big roads and remove the buildings that are extra. Do not worry anja, Jabalia will know you, Jabalia doe not forget your heart beats, loving it and everything that is Palestinian. I love you Jabalia, don’t let the marks of the bulldozers and the tanks affect you face and kick them out to where they belong. Be beautiful as we know you and huge your children as every little child will become a rose. Let’s see how many roses will Sharoon collect. Sharoon has called this operation the collection of roses. Please Jabalia, give him pain and will your children sleep in peace.
No parent should have to bury their child… 🙁
Dear Ramadan,
I’m speechless, again….
Why, oh why is nobody capable to stop this horror, this collective immorality ?
My thougts are with you and with all my friends in Gaza and I hope and pray that you still will be alive tomorrow morning
Joes
klein liedje voor raghda
terwijl jij leert schrijven
I go to school
geven de grote mensen
elkaar strafwerk
slaap, raghda, slaap
terwijl jij je schrift pakt
een lekker nieuw schrift
dit schrift blijft netjes
geven de grote mensen
elkaar de schuld
slaap, raghda, slaap
terwijl jij schrijft
apple is appel
to play is spelen
geven de grote mensen
door jouw hoofd heen
jou de schuld
droom, raghda, droom
terwijl jij schrijft
blood is bloed
a child is een kind
a rose is een roos
a bus is een bus
my apple is lekker
geven de grote mensen
het nooit op
terwijl jij met bloed schrijft
in jouw nieuwe schrift
geven de grote mensen
jou op
Don’t worry joes, I am still a life and many Palestinians are. Sharoon and his military machine will not kill the life.
Please darr, is it poem, if yes could you translate it into english.
Claar, will you translate your poem? Otherwise I will. It is beautiful.
Oh Claar
I am sorry I got your name worng so forgive me.
I have nothing to say. I am following the developments in Gaza.
More then 30 deaths. They said all gumenn, but 5 under the age of 14, gunmen????And the world believes it.I am Angry, thinking what can we do, and I don’t know. The world, as usual, is talking about defeat of terrorism, but this
Israeli state-terrorism can do what it wants.
Ramadan, Fatme and all people of Gaza, for what it means, we think about you. Stay strong, hug all your kids on my behalf. And let us know what is going on, lett the world know, there are people who want to listen.
A small song for Raghda
while you learn to write
‘I go to school’
the grown ups
punish each other
sleep, Raghda, sleep
while you take out your notebook
a nice new notebook
wishing to keep it clean
the grown ups
blame each other
sleep, Raghda, sleep
while you write
apple is apple
to play is to play
the grown ups
blame you
over your head
dream, Raghda, dream
while you write
blood is blood
a child is a child
a rose is a rose
a bus is a bus
my apple is nice
the grown ups
never give up
while you write in blood
in your new notebook
the grown ups
give up on you
(Poems in translation always lose some meaning. In Dutch the word for grown ups is the same as ‘big people’, so it changes meaning, in the end it is the big people who give up on a little girl. Also in the translation you can’t seeing she is doing her english lessons. As we heard, she was shot during english lesson, and her mother had given her an apple to take to school with her. If Claar who wrote this poem wants to change the translation she can.)
This is so terrible and it continues. Yesterday 28 Palestinians were killed, three Israeli. How can we stop this killing process in the fucked up Middle-East? I hope that justice will win and the land will return to its owners or at least that there will be freedom and respect for the Palestinians and that they are not threaten as if they are nothing. Nothing hurts more then being neglected.
dear Ramadan and Anja,
The poem indeed is hard to translate, but let’s give it one more try – for Raghda and for all the children killed. I changed some words, because of the anger I felt. Like ‘blame’ into ‘accused’. And ‘over your head’ into ‘right through your head’.
It should have been ‘over her head’, so she would have been alive yet.
It made me think again: what on earth are we grown-ups doing?
Ramadan, could you do the Dutch visitors of Anja’s site and me the favour, of translating the “…..” parts into Palestinian (if possible?). It will make clear to us, Dutch people, what Raghda was thinking in her own language and it will help us to realize she was doing English class when killed.
Anja is right, in English translation we can’t see, Raghda was learning English. But a Palestian translation will help us see. Thank you, Ramadan, for the way you turned Sharoon’s cynical and horrible roses into the eternal beauty of roses. It made me cry for Raghda and that’s why the song for Raghda actually wrote itself.
A small song for Raghda
while you learn to write
‘I go to school’
the grown-ups give
each other school punishment
sleep, Raghda, sleep
while you take out your notebook
a nice new notebook
intending to keep it clean
the grown-ups
accuse each other
sleep, Raghda, sleep
while you write
apple is …..
to play is …..
the grown-ups
accuse you
right through your head
dream, Raghda, dream
while you write
blood is ….
a child is …..
a rose is …..
a bus is …..
‘my apple is nice’
the grown-ups
never give up
while you write in blood
in your new notebook
the grown-ups
give up
on you
Mooi, Claar. Ik heb intenting veranderd in intending.
Over dat strafwerk moet je misschien nog even nadenken voor een alternatief. Het is jouw gedicht dus je kunt het ook herschrijven. School punishment is geen engelse uitdrukking. Wat er wel is, strafwerk maken, writing lines.
In Palestina spreken ze Arabisch, met een eigen accent. Ik heb de woorden vast in een van mijn woordenboeken opgezocht, hoe je ze schrijft in latijnse letters is altijd een punt.
Hier komen ze:
apple – tuffah
to play – bal’ab
blood – damm
child – walad
rose – ward
bus -bas
Ramadan, you agree?
Good Anja, but one apple is tufaaha 🙂
Dear Claar, Anja and others
thanks for the effort of translating the poem. I know that peom losses some of its strength when translated into a different language, but I got what is it you meant to say. Actually, it is more than great and it says alot about what is going down here with our children. I will help transalting into arabic, is it what you meant claar, to translate into arabic. If yes, please inform me soon to start. And for anja. it is correct what Imad said. It is Tufaha.
dear Ramadan, originally we only asked you to translate the small words in Arabic, then I found the dictionary, but if yiu have time to translate the poem into Arabic so you can show people, it would be wonderful.
On the contrary, Ramadan, translating this poem from Dutch to English to Arabic, so that more people can understand, will add to its stength. And I wish you and everybody close to you lots of it.
Het is zo zielig. het is vreselijk om doodgeschoten te worden!
het is niet te geloven dat dit is gebeurt. En het kind was nog zo jong….. 🙁
ik heet ook raghda en k vind dat echt erg wa daaar allml gebeurt spijtig dat we nix voor hun kunnen doen
ik vind het heeel erg voor haar en ook voor de ouders vind ik het heel erg.
echt erg dat dat daar gebeurd het is al lang geleden maar k ben er nog stil van ”snik”